Court adjourns case against alleged 'Heartbleed' hacker

The case against the 19-year-old London, Ont. student accused of stealing 900 SIN numbers earlier this year after Canadian Revenue Agency computers were infected by the Heartbleed bug, made its first appearance on an Ottawa court docket Thursday.

Chris Cobb, Ottawa Citizen

Updated: July 17, 2014

2014 high school yearbook photograph of Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes, 19, in London, Ontario. Police have charged a 19-year-old man from London, Ont., in connection with the loss of taxpayer data from the Canada Revenue Agency website.

The case against the 19-year-old London, Ont. student accused of stealing 900 SIN numbers earlier this year after Canadian Revenue Agency computers were infected by the Heartbleed bug, made its first appearance on an Ottawa court docket Thursday.

But the accused, Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes, wasn’t in court and nor was his lawyer.

The adjournment, before a local justice of the peace, was handled by a law clerk from an Ottawa firm.

The case will re-appear on the court docket Aug. 14 for another adjournment.

The defence is apparently still waiting for a full disclosure of RCMP evidence in the case.

Reyes, son of a Western University computer science professor, faces two charges: unauthorized use of a computer and ‘mischief in relation to data.”

His London lawyer, Faisal Joseph, was unavailable for comment but in an earlier interview, said Solis-Reyes and his family were “absolutely devastated” by the charges.

According to Joseph, Solis-Reyes turned himself into London police in April after RCMP officers threatened to arrest him during one of his classes.

The RCMP allege that Solis-Reyes exploited the Heartbleed bug to pull private information from the compromised CRA computer system.

The bug forced CRA to shut down access to some of its computers in April, at the height of the tax filing season.